


Twice As Sweet As Sugar

by Polomonkey



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur is a ray of sunshine, Baking, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Merlin has a smug cactus, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 20:37:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13509330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polomonkey/pseuds/Polomonkey
Summary: Nothing seems to be going right for Merlin today until the tea trolley comes around, wheeled by an oddly familiar person...





	Twice As Sweet As Sugar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LFB72](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LFB72/gifts).



> For LFB, who is being vexed by her art but will persevere because she's awesome <3 Based on a fabulous comment typo she made about 'catering Arthur'
> 
> Lovely MK wrote an amazing remix of this fic, check it out the link at the end!

Merlin sighed. Three hours he’d been staring at this stupid collage and he was no closer to fixing it. It had been fine when they were separate images but trying to merge them together in some kind of coherent design was proving nigh on impossible.

He glared at Henry, the little purple potted cactus Gwen had given him.

“You’re no help either.”

Henry’s only response was a mocking silence. Smug little thing. God, Merlin missed the old days of doing all his drawings in notebooks with pencils. He’d never quite been able to recapture that magic when he was drawing with machines instead.

He sighed again, even louder.

“You look like you could use a cream bun,” a voice chirped behind him.

Merlin jumped so badly he nearly knocked Henry onto the floor. He spun round in his chair to see a fair haired man standing in the doorway, a tea trolley parked in front of him.

“Oops!” the man said. “Didn’t mean to startle you!”

“I… I… where’s Alice?” Merlin said, because the only tea trolley he’d ever seen in the office had been pushed by a kindly lady with grey hair and spectacles. As opposed to an oddly familiar man about Merlin’s age with startling blue eyes and… was that an apron?

“Her husband broke his ankle so she’s off all week and I’m covering,” the man said cheerfully. Perhaps inappropriately cheerfully, considering the whole broken ankle thing.

“Ah.”

Merlin was sure he recognised the guy from somewhere. But something about it didn’t fit, like maybe the man hadn’t been so smiley the last time they’d met…

“So… cream bun?”

“Oh, no, I don’t usually-”

“Ah come on!” the man said, beaming at him. “You look done in and a sweet treat never goes amiss.”

Merlin liked to think he was a fairly optimistic person but this man was radiating positivity like a hundred kilowatt bulb. Perhaps he was on a sugar high from his own cakes?

“I’m honestly fine-”

“Don’t be silly! Let’s see, I’ve got eclairs, do you like eclairs? Or custard slices? Or brownies? Or blondies? Or apple pie? Or coffee cake? Or carrot cake? Or honey cake? Or lemon cake? Or-“

“A cup of tea!” Merlin interrupted desperately, because he was slightly concerned the man would just go on listing cakes forever until they both withered and died in this office, with Merlin’s collage still tragically unfinished. “A cup of tea would be nice.”

“Of course!” the man trilled, picking up the teapot. “Nothing like a cup of tea, is there? I had some troubles of late and it began to look like nothing would go right again. But then one morning I woke up and had a nice cup of tea and suddenly the clouds parted and I knew what I had to do.”

“Right,” Merlin said nervously. The scenario of them withering away and dying was rapidly being replaced by one in which the man was part of some kind of tea cult and trapped Merlin in his office until he agreed to follow the teachings of Reverend P.G. Tips or whatever.

“Milk? Sugar?”

“Just milk.”

Merlin had to admit, the tea did look just the right colour when the man handed it over. He took a tentative sip and found that it tasted pretty bang on too.

“Thanks, er-“

“Arthur,” the man supplied readily.

 _Arthur_. He’d heard that name before. God, Merlin definitely knew this man, why couldn’t he remember?

“And you’re Merlin,” Arthur said and Merlin nearly choked on his tea.

“How did you know that?” he spluttered, replacing the cult fantasy for one in which Arthur had stalked him here to provide him with delicious but poisoned tea and would later cut him up to be made into some kind of specialty cake.

“It’s written on your door,” Arthur said merrily.

Merlin blushed. So it was. Perhaps his imaginings were getting a little overly paranoid.

“Right. Yes. Well, thanks for the tea. I think it was what I needed.”

“Sure I can’t tempt you to something else?”

Arthur’s smile was rather winning and the strawberry tart he was holding aloft did look delicious. Merlin looked back at the failed Photoshop on his screen and decided he deserved a little break.

“Alright, you’ve twisted my arm.”

The tart was just as good as it looked. Flaky, crumbly pastry, exquisitely sweet strawberries, mouth-watering creamy filling.

“This is incredible. Did Alice bake this?”

Arthur smiled even wider than before.

“No, I did. I baked all of them.”

Merlin couldn’t help but be a little awestruck. Come to think of it, Alice usually only brought round packets of biscuits and plates of pre-made Mr Kipling cakes. Seemed this Arthur had really taken the initiative.

“You’ve gone to a lot of effort.”

“Well, I’m…”

For the first time, Arthur’s grin faltered slightly.

“I’m sort of testing something out. To see if it works. Alice needing cover seemed like the perfect opportunity.”

“Are you testing how to send the entire graphic design department into a food coma?” Merlin said, taking another bite of the tart. It really was sinfully good.

“I got fired last month,” Arthur said, straight out, and the change in mood was so sudden that Merlin nearly sent Henry flying a second time.

“I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, shoving Henry back into place (which to be honest was quite painful, what with Henry being a rather spiky fellow).

“It’s alright. Well, it wasn’t. I was pretty blue about it.”

Arthur looked so down all of a sudden that Merlin missed the chirpiness from before, overwhelming as it had been.

Almost as soon as he’d had that thought, a sunny smile broke out on Arthur’s face again.

“But then Alice made me that magic cup of tea and reminded me of all the times I told her I wanted to be a baker growing up. And asked me if it wasn’t about time I made a go of it.”

Arthur gestured to his trolley.

“So here I am!”

Merlin couldn’t help but grin back, at the sheer enthusiasm on Arthur’s face.

“And when Alice comes back to work?”

“I already applied to some catering companies. Hopefully someone’ll take me on.”

“Well, if you need a graphic designer to jazz up your CV…”

Arthur laughed and it was a rather lovely sound. Then, like a flash of lightning, it hit Merlin.

“Wait, you’re… you’re Arthur Pendragon!”

Arthur Pendragon of Pendragon Limited, the firm that up until recently had been bringing a lawsuit against Merlin’s company for copyright infringement. The claim had no basis but they were only a small start-up and they’d all been fretting about fighting the case. Until the suit had unexpectedly been dropped a month ago.

“You tried to sue us!”

Arthur had gone slightly pale.

“Yes. Well, my father did.”

“Unbelievable!” Merlin said. “Just when I was warming up to you, then I find out you’re one of the vultures who nearly hassled us into closing!”

“Was.”

“What?”

“Was one of the vultures. Remember how I got fired?”

Arthur grimaced.

“I sort of dismantled our case against you.”

That took the wind out of Merlin’s sails slightly.

“Oh. Well… why?”

“It wasn’t right,” Arthur said simply. “You hadn’t done what our client claimed you had.”

“Well. Hmmph. Okay then.”

That cast things in a rather new light. Sounded like Arthur had stuck his neck (and lucratively paid job) on the line for the sake of integrity. Merlin couldn't help but be impressed.

Embarrassed, he cast around for something repentant to say.

“I really can do your CV, you know. Or a cover letter. Or if you ever set up your own business and want some branding done or menus...”

He screwed up all his courage.

“We could maybe discuss it at dinner sometime?”

There was a pause and then Arthur took hold of his trolley again.

“I’ve got the rest of my rounds to do,” he said.

Merlin nodded, downcast.

“So I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up?”

Merlin looked up to see that hundred kilowatt smile was back in place.

“I like Italian food,” Arthur said with a wink and then popped an éclair on Merlin’s desk before wheeling his trolley out.

Dazedly delighted, Merlin gave Henry an absentminded pat.

Who cared if Photoshop hated him? The day had taken a very sweet turn indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Fun trivia: I picked this title in a rush because it sounded cute, and now I've remembered it's from White Lines by Grandmaster Flash and is in fact about cocaine. So there that is.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [It Started with A Cream Bun (Remix of Twice As Sweet As Sugar)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14684088) by [Emrys MK (mk_malfoy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mk_malfoy/pseuds/Emrys%20MK)




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